A great result from the Tallinn Marathon motivated me to continue my career as a professional athlete. Photo: Mihkel Maripuu
In 2024, I ran a total of three marathons and participated in the European Athletics Championships in Rome. The strongest performance of this year came from the Tallinn Marathon, where I finished 4th in the elite race with a time of 2:15:04 (taking into account the course profile, climate, and other factors affecting performance).
At the beginning of the year, I ran average results in the marathons in Seville (2:14:50) and Vienna (2:18:53) due to a hamstring overload that affected my performance.
In the hot conditions of the European Championships in Rome, I finished 40th in the half marathon. I could have competed for a stronger position, but only if I hadn’t directed all my focus towards the Paris Olympics. Achieving 10th place in the team standings is something special, especially among the major countries!
A personal achievement was winning road running competitions in four different countries: Spain, Finland, Latvia, and Estonia.
I won the 10 km race held as part of the Riga Marathon with a 10-second lead over Otto KINGSTEDT.
I’ve been waiting for this moment for twenty years, to taste victory in Finland. Until now, I have been on the podium at least eight times behind the podium’s highest step, but never at the top. Sometimes I was just tenths of a second away, and once, the win was lost due to a course marshal’s mistake. This year, the effort paid off at Helsinki’s largest running event! I won the 5 km road race in challenging conditions, ahead of Swedish star runner David Nilsson.
Between the Rome Half Marathon and the Tallinn Marathon, there was also a very short stadium season. I won the gold medal in the 5000 m event at the Estonian Championships for the 11th time. A week later, I added the Baltic Championship title in the 5000 m race to that.
Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in the Paris Olympics. The qualification conditions, which I had built my efforts around, did not work as the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had advertised a year and a half ago.
At the beginning of the year, I attended two training camps in Kenya, and this summer, I spent time at the Font Romeu training center for the first time. The location is familiar to many top European runners. Being in France while the Olympics were taking place was a great blessing. We saw up close how many Olympic athletes were going through their final pre-competition cycles. I even had the chance to give my friend Bashir a high-five just three days before the marathon. He took the silver in the marathon! Or, for example, a blind runner from Brazil (Parabens Julio Cesar), who trained in front of us, fell to the ground during a session, and later won gold at the Paralympics. In the video below, you can see how we trained there with Leonid.
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has supported me on this extraordinary journey!
I would especially like to acknowledge the following individuals by name:
- My coach, Mark Misch
- Assistant coach and manager, Harry Lemberg
- Manager, Charles Paanakker
- Spiritual mentors, Brad Bartz and Nick Schuetze
- My masseur, Peeter Nigol
- Sports medicine doctors, Agnes Mägi and Mihkel Mardna
- My wonderful wife, Maili, and our children
Thank you all for being part of this incredible experience!
